Cydonia · @CydoniaHS
19th Feb 2019 from TwitLonger
Response to Iksar's question twitlonger
Iksar, one of the most experienced game designers of Hearthstone, tweeted today: If Hearthstone used to be your main game but isn't anymore, what would get you back?
I wrote and deleted several replies on twitter before realizing that I had so much to say on the subject that I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I took time to articulate my thoughts properly. Also it’s about time that I wrote an article…
I will deviate a bit from the exact question since I still consider myself a Hearthstone player, and this question is really 3 different questions… 1) Is the game fun? 2) Is there a way to progress in the game? 3) Is the game challenging and competitive?
Hearthstone is one of my favorite games of all time and I have had a ton of fun playing it first as a casual player and then as a professional. I have found myself having less fun lately and spent a lot of time thinking about why that is so here goes. I will not name all of them but some of my favorite decks were Mech Mage with Antonidas, Druid with Fandral and Raven Idol, Renolock, and Shudderwock Shaman. What these decks have in common is that they are somewhat midrangey and have different ways to win the game. I love decks that can assume an aggressive role or a more controlling role depending on the matchup and the specific draws. I enjoy when you have to decide during the game whether to go for value or for tempo and when your decisions end up mattering. The random elements from cards like Unstable Portal, Raven Idol and Hagatha also make sure games don’t all feel the same. For example with Shudderwock Shaman, on top of all the interesting interactions and mini combos between your cards (Grumble, Zola and Hagatha played a huge role here), I had to keep track of the game plan and decide whether to go for tempo and play everything on curve, infinite combo with Shudderwock or just try to grind out the value game with Hagatha. This made sure I never got bored of the deck as I felt I was learning new things almost every game and my decisions depended a lot on the matchup, my specific draw, and what my opponent was doing.
In contrast, I don’t enjoy non interactive games. For that reason, I play mostly midrange and control decks and avoid aggro decks and combo decks for the most part. Aggro tries to kill the opponent before their cards matter and combo’s game plan is to win in a way that makes most of the opponent’s cards not matter, so they tend to be less interactive than midrange, tempo or control decks (aggro mirrors are pretty interactive though and I do enjoy those). I have come to realize, however, that aggro needs to be good for control and midrange to be viable. If aggro becomes too weak and the only way to interact with combo decks is to kill them before they combo you out, then the metagame becomes only combo decks.
What happened in the last few years is that aggressive cards have rotated or been nerfed at an astonishing rate and many degenerate combos have been enabled. Leper Gnome, Abusive Sergeant, Knife Juggler, Power Overwhelming, Cold Blood, Fiery War Axe, Flametongue Totem, Rockbiter Weapon, Mana Wyrm, Corridor Creeper, have all been weakened or left us, in addition to many powerful aggressive cards naturally rotating to wild (Tunnel Trogg and Totem Golem come to mind). On the combo side, we now have access to different flavors of Mecha’Thun, Holy Wrath / Uther OTK paladin, Hakkar, Togwaggle / Azalina, Malygos / Kobold Illusionist, Exodia Mage, Cloning Gallery OTK, Topsy Turvy OTK... This seems like a lot and I am still omitting some. Only a few things matter when playing with or against these decks: how fast you can kill them, and sometimes ways to interact, for example Freezing Trap and Skulking Geist will help a bit against Malygos Rogue. It does test skill to know how to be aggressive or to combo in the most efficient way, and to know which things matter, but games are very similar and it just doesn’t feel like Hearthstone to me when concepts of tempo and value can be largely ignored. I did even have tremendous success with Mecha’Thun Warlock in Wild, which I believe is the best Wild deck, but not that much fun as in many games almost everything didn’t matter other than playing around niche cards like Dirty Rat, Coldlight Oracle and Deathlord. I feel that the Hearthstone team was a bit too restrictive when they nerfed combos like Leeroy + Faceless Manipulator + Power Overwhelming and Force of Nature + Savage Roar since these combos still have to go through taunts and the second one is only 16 damage so they have some counterplay, but to me, the current tendency of nerfing aggressive cards and enabling degenerate combos is making the game less fun.
Hero Cards, being value engines, moved the game away from interesting value / tempo decisions and towards who would draw theirs first, and it will be interesting to see what happens when they rotate. In this case however, even though they might have made some games less fun due to many other cards not mattering when they enter play, they are extremely flavorful cards and I still had a lot of fun playing with them, especially Thrall, Hagatha and Dr. Boom. Unlike most degenerate combos, which I would happily relegate to tier 4 so I would play against them as infrequently as possible and not need to play them myself, I think Hero Cards were a net positive for the game since Hearthstone being great is so much about elegant design and flavor.
I have established which decks and types of gameplay I find fun, but would I play Shudderwock Shaman all day on ladder without any incentive or reward? There is the 10 gold per 3 wins I guess, but that is not enough. Games nowadays also need to give some sense of progression. At the start, I felt overwhelmed by all the goals to accomplish in Hearthstone and it took a long time to unlock all the basic golden cards by leveling all heroes to 60, and then all the golden hero portraits but it’s time to have more to do in the game. Brawliseum and Heroic Tavern Brawl always make me jam more games than I usually would, especially Heroic Brawl since the rewards are great (though we haven’t seen it in a while, hint hint), and I always make sure I unlock the Hero Portraits (Arthas comes to mind). Like other people have suggested, some kind of achievement system or more customizables would add depth and replayability to the game.
One of the most fun times for me has been when League of Explorers was released and Finley, Brann, Elise and Reno all had a huge impact on the metagame, yet were not released at the same time so the meta was in flux for a while. I think that releasing a small amount of impactful cards is a more interesting way to keep the game fresh than nerfing cards and should be considered by the Hearthstone team. I do realize that since I have always been a fan of eternal formats in card games due to the nostalgia factor, I really dislike nerfs in general.
A fun game experience and sense of progression would keep me playing as a casual player, but of course I expect more than that as a competitor. I had amazing experiences traveling the world and playing tournament Hearthstone for the past few years and would welcome more opportunities this year. This article is already very long and most competitive players agree and have chimed in already that we would like a way to keep playing competitively in 2019, so I won’t elaborate too much on that.
I am ecstatic that the designers and developers are listening to feedback and trying to make the game and competitive scene as good as possible going forward. Due to its amazing interface and huge player base, I feel that Hearthstone has the most potential of any digital card game. I just hope that we will again be taken to great places, both in game and outside the game!
Xo
Cydonia